Developing an end-to-end Java EE scenario involves many steps. It is a common situation for non-experienced Java EE developers to ask themselves: ''"OK. I have generated the JPA entity for my DB table. Now, what's next?"''. It is true that the context menus of the editors and Project Navigator contain Java EE-specific actions, but they are somehow lost for the user in the whole bunch of context-menu actions.

Developing an end-to-end Java EE scenario involves many steps. It is a common situation for non-experienced Java EE developers to ask themselves: ''"OK. I have generated the JPA entity for my DB table. Now, what's next?"''. It is true that the context menus of the editors and Project Navigator contain Java EE-specific actions, but they are somehow lost for the user in the whole bunch of context-menu actions.

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==== Solution ====

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The Java EE perspective should provide a special view that guides and hints developers with the possible Java EE-specific steps they could execute. For example: ''"Generate Session facade for JPA entity"''.

The Java EE perspective should provide a special view that guides and hints developers with the possible Java EE-specific steps they could execute. For example: ''"Generate Session facade for JPA entity"''.

Revision as of 13:26, 22 May 2008

The goal of this wiki page is to collect and summarize all ideas for User Experience improvements in WTP.

UX ideas

Java EE application scenarios

Java EE patterns

Tools for easy EJB testing

EJB developers would appreciate tools that enables them to easily test developed EJB artifacts. Such tools could be:

a framework for generating JUnit test stubs out from EJB beans.

a lightweight EJB container that runs locally and enables developers to test their EJB beans without a need of full-blown Java EE application server.

an integration between the JUnit generation framework and the lightweight EJB container where the tests would be executed.

Index search for Java EE metadata

We are all familiar with the Open Type and Open Resource index searches in the workbench and how useful they are when we try to quickly locate our files and Java classes in the huge project we are working with. The Java EE perspective should naturally evolve these features to Java EE metadata index search, where developers can search for certain metadata in their Java EE projects.

These new feature should introduce new dialog box that looks similar to the Open Type and Open Resource dialogs. There should be a hotkey combination available that enables users to quickly call the dialog. Typing a portion of the Java EE metadata name or description should filter the available Java EE artifacts and assist the user choice.

Examples for Java EE metadata are:

EJB beans

Web servlets

EJB references

Security roles

Context-sensitive view with possible high level actions

Developing an end-to-end Java EE scenario involves many steps. It is a common situation for non-experienced Java EE developers to ask themselves: "OK. I have generated the JPA entity for my DB table. Now, what's next?". It is true that the context menus of the editors and Project Navigator contain Java EE-specific actions, but they are somehow lost for the user in the whole bunch of context-menu actions.

Solution

The Java EE perspective should provide a special view that guides and hints developers with the possible Java EE-specific steps they could execute. For example: "Generate Session facade for JPA entity".

Here are some of the characteristics that should be required for the view:

Context-sensitive. Only the actions relevant for the current (on focus) artifacts should be displayed in the view.